ROOSEVELT ISLAND – I took the F Train to Roosevelt Island today to get a straight-on angle on the Pepsi sign, a landmark that I shot up close in Long Island City ten days ago. The black and white version of the Long Island City image was incomprehensible so I posted it in color. No problem with black and white image today, but I’m posting color as well for comparison with the earlier image.
Day 3234 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
New York – Pepsi signPepsi sign color
On this date eight years ago (day 312 of one photo every day): More Africa. I’ve re-edited this image.
NAIROBI, KENYA – Here we are – out last day in Kenya. We went on a “food safari” in local markets with Hubert des Marais (an American from the Carolinas), a prominent chef who has become Fairmont’s executive chef in Kenya (or maybe East Africa). Our first stop was a large covered farmers’ market where local residents bring vegetables grown on plots in Nairobi.
Food Market
Cell phones are the primary means of communications; many residents lack electric power so business that offer the charge cell phones, like this one in the market, are common.
A cell phone charging service in the market
There’s a food court in the food market where it possible to buy lunch. The word “hotel” on the sign means “restaurant” in this context.
The largest foreign food influence is Indian. The Indians were brought in by the English to build the railroad from Mombasa to Lake Victoria. Indians also came to the region as traders, merchants and professionals. Here we see an Indian pastry shop.
An indian pastry shop
This is a former aircraft hanger, from the era when the airstrip was in the middle of Nairobi, converted to a mall for small merchants.
Shops
Hubert des Marais at lunch at Chowpaty, a terrific Indian dive. In terms of Indian regional cuisines, what we appeared to see was everything pretty much mixed together.
Hubert des Marais
Finally before packing for our flight back to New York we managed a few hours in the Nairobi National Museum. It focuses on primarily on natural history, ethnography and geology, geared roughly to a high school student. Here is a group of high school students lined up for admission:
NAIROBI, KENYA – We spent the morning visiting another remarkable charity: AmericaShare, which is sponsored by our safari organizer. It right in the middle of an extensive shantytown – a favella if it were in Brazil – and it provides a variety of services (including education) to badly at risk children in the area.
AmericaShareAmericaShare
One of the needs identified by this program is reusable sanitary napkins which facilitate school attendance by teenage girls. They are manufactured on the spot.
AmericaShare
In a study in cultural contrast we had lunch at home with Anna Trzebinski and her father, Michael Cunningham-Reed. Anna is a talented fashion designer, her father a remarkable raconteur.
SINGITA GRUMETI RESERVES, TANZANIA – We made a short trip by air to another spot on the Mara River (in Tanzania) known for its crossings. The wildebeest didn’t cooperate so there was little drama in the excursion. We did see a lot of hippos – managed to capture some of my best hippo images.
Hippos
We visited Singita Sasakwa Lodge for lunch and a ride on trail bikes. Singiti Sasakwa is the lodge built by Paul Tudor Jones that I mentioned in an earlier post. Here’s a link: Sasakwa Lodge.
Here’s an image of a burned out area from our bicycle ride:
Controlled burn
Finally, a sunset back at our tented camp – our last in the bush as we return to Nairobi tomorrow.
SINGITA GRUMETI RESERVES, TANZANIA – More images of the moon-like landscape
Zebras
We had a dramatic moment in the late afternoon. A hyena ran down a young wildebeest. As noted elsewhere hyenas eat their prey without killing it first. Here the hyena eats the wildebeest starting with its hind quarters as we hear the wildebeest’s continuing screams. That night in our tent I imagined that every sound that I heard outside of our tent was a hyena.
MAASAI MARA KENYA – A sunset. I’ve actually posted this a year late because I realized that I hadn’t actually posted my image for this day when I tried to find it for my “one year ago” exercise on August 24, 2011. I actually took the following picture, a sunset, on the right date but didn’t post it.
MAASAI MARA, KENYA – Ride back from the crossing and late afternoon bush walk. Here’s a heard of Maasai cattle. As noted in an earlier post the Maasai are semi-nomadic cattle herders. They prefer large horn cattle in white with small black markings. The Maasai believe that all the cattle in the world belong to Maasai, leading to behavior that is considered cattle theft by others. Historically their diet consisted primarily of milk mixed with cow’s blood drawn from an artery – they patch up the wound after drawing the blood. They supplement it with sheep and goats. Cows are to valuable as a measure of wealth to slaughter for food.
Maasai cattle
This gives some idea of just how ugly the spotted hyena is:
Spotted hyenas
We took a late afternoon bush walk. This is Maria with our Maasai guide, Ping, inspecting a termite hill. Ping is an amazing story teller; he’s the fellow who spent six month’s in Orlando advising on the safari ride.
